Newsbreak's anti-Arroyo slant
For the second time now, Newsbreak has written an article blaming the President for the creation of new local government units. Last August, Newsbreak wrote that Arroyo's administration "is guilty of making it more difficult for [cities] to make ends meet." According to Newsbreak, "Malacañang is perceived to be encouraging the practice" of creating more local governments and that "[t]he President has not discouraged her allies in the legislature from creating new local entities." Newsbreak added that "local government leagues have lobbied for an end to it—to no avail." In an earlier post I ridiculed this assessment by pointing out that the creation of new cities became a trend long before Arroyo assumed power. The rush to "cityhood" was triggered by a badly written provision in the local government code that provides cities with a larger share of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA). This share allowed Local Government Units to mee...